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ENGLAND AWAKENING

AROUSED TO THE NECESSITY OF FACING SQUARELY HER VERY SERIOUS SITUATION

"The Candid Friend"

From The London Times

The picture of the economic position of this country that has been drawn by Mr. George Harvey, at one time the Ambassador of the United States to the Court of St. James's, is not flattering. We are not sorry, however, that it has appeared in a paper so widely read as THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, because, if it does nothing else, it will at least make a great number of Americans realize as they have never realized before the extent of the sacrifices made by the United Kingdom in the war.

That our case is as desperate as Mr. Harvey would have his readers think we do not for one moment believe, but it is high time that the world began to realize that this country is no longer able to play the rôle of benevolent godmother to all the needy peoples of the earth, and that its wealth is not so enormous that it can afford to carry an undue proportion of humanity's load. Hitherto there has always been a tendency to believe that Great Britain in her dealings with other countries could afford to make concessions for which she got no adequate return because of her great wealth. Mr. Harvey is under no such illusion. He goes to the other extreme and has declared that, saddled with a tremendous debt, Great Britain is faced with the danger of default in her debt payments and with a struggle to maintain her position as an industrial and commercial power.

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It would be interesting to know at what date Mr. Harvey formed these pessimistic views, seeing that he was one of those who took part in the negotiations which resulted in funding the British debt to the United States, but we are less concerned with the mental processes of Mr. Harvey than with the conclusions at which he has arrived. . .

Mr. Harvey praises the efforts made by Great Britain to maintain standards of national integrity in assuming her vast obligations. It remains to be seen whether in the long run this country or the United States of America will ultimately secure a greater advantage from the payment by this country of debts contracted on behalf of its Allies. We do not say that it is necessarily advantageous to this country to be under an obligation to pay between thirty and forty millions a year to the United States for a period of sixty years, but

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it has yet to be shown that the receipt of this money by America will ultimately benefit her people.

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Meanwhile, although about half of the taxation of this country is utilized to pay the interest on its national debt, it is to be remembered that that debt is mainly internal and that what is taken from the people in the form of taxes for this purpose is returned to them in the shape of dividends. . . .

So long as the national debt is not unduly high, and is maintained on a sound basis with reasonable provision for a sinking fund, it does not permanently affect adversely to any large extent the supply of credit or trade capital. The processes of readjustment are slow and painful, but they are going on without intermission. If Mr. Harvey's object is to induce the people of America to take broader views in regard to what should be their attitude towards the rest of the world we wish him all success, but it is premature for him to begin to count this country out. It has had a nasty blow, but that is a very different thing from being knocked out. Nor should it be forgotten that the strength of a faggot vastly exceeds the strength of any single stick in it. The people of this country are beginning to realize that it is part of a great Empire, the economic strength of which is incalculable. The family is growing up; the old firm will be strengthened by the inclusion of new partners.

"Pessimism as a Stimulus"

Arthur W. Kiddy in The Spectator

There is a pessimism which is demoralizing, and we are all familiar with it. It leads nowhere; indeed, by its paralysing influence it can produce on the individual or the nation something akin to a paralysis of the body, crippling initiative and enterprise. On the other hand, it is open to question whether very much the same crippling effects may not be produced by an unfounded optimism. It would be a poor kind of optimism, for example, if, in the case of some business which is declining through bad management or excessive expenditure, attempts should be made to gloss over matters and, with a cheery optimism, reserves should be drawn upon to maintain high dividends hoping that something "will turn up" to put things right later. In such a case, a little pessimism, a plainer facing of the facts, however unpleasant at the time, might prove to be a better way of reaching happier times, later on, than ignoring the actual facts of the position.

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Now, I am far from asserting that for a foreign country to conceive the idea of our financial and industrial position here being of an unsatisfactory character is desirable. Just as, in real warfare, we do not make known our weak positions to the enemy, so, in the great industrial competition and struggle we shall do well to observe a certain reticence lest what is really intended for stimulus at home, should occasion an impression that the industrial position in

Great Britain is much worse than it actually is. Nevertheless, I believe that of the two courses, namely, an over-emphasis of the economic difficulties with which we have to contend after the War and an easy optimistic underestimate of such difficulties, it is the latter which in the long run is the more dangerous.

It is a matter where the shortcomings apply to almost every section of the community. If Governments were alive to the demands of the position it would not be necessary to goad our statesmen into the adoption of drastic economies in National Expenditure. If Capital and Labour both perceived whither things were tending there would be a greater effort to come together and to abandon many Trade Union restrictions, recognizing that, above all things, what was required at the present time from the highest to the lowest in the country was the stimulus of reward to the efficient and industrious and short shrift to the slacker, whatever indulgence in the matter of minimum wage might be meted out to the willing but less capable worker. . . .

Of course, Great Britain is not "down and out," either industrially or in any other sense, but the question is whether at a critical moment in her financial and industrial history she is not holding back that united effort which was never more urgently needed.

"From John to Jonathan"

James L. Garvin in The London Observer

We do not greatly care about what most nations think. We do care about what America thinks. Since the coal subsidy there has been no stemming the flood of dismal misunderstanding in the United States. We have jested about these vicarious jeremiads, but when repeated by a statesman recently Ambassador to this country, they require more serious notice. Colonel Harvey is one of the most incisive writers alive. His galling pen has been felt in turn by each party amongst his own countrymen. He does not gild his pills. Whether he writes about us or his own people, the style is the usual man. But let there be no mistake on our side about a main thing. The ex-Ambassador is no exfriend. He is a staunch well-wisher, and if affairs depended on him, would prove it. For that reason he is well worth a dialogue.

The pith of Colonel Harvey's argument is that we are fundamentally insolvent. We are making a magnificent but pathetic effort to pay twenty shillings in the pound. Considering the mass of our domestic and foreign obligations, the attempt is as exhausting as heroic. We are dying of honour and dignity. John Bull will make a "handsome corpse" over whom honest tears ought to be shed. Meanwhile under an insupportable load John is vainly trying to lift himself up by his bootstraps. Our national bankruptcy is coming, as facts stand. Before that event occurs America ought to be considerate. The conclusion is meant well and we take it well.

It is staggering enough that a statesman of Colonel Harvey's rank and ability can set down these ideas and believe them. Far more staggering is his method of reaching those ideas. What does he do? He does the simplest thing in the world. He ignores our assets, material and moral, developed and potential. He ignores them all. As though we had no counter-balancing resources whatever, he presents the sum of our liabilities as our balance to the bad.

The real trouble is one that no human wisdom could foresee. We never dreamed that we would have to pay America without being paid ourselves. That is where we are hit. An equal squaring of accounts all round would have left us well on the right side. As it is, we are some £80,000,000 annually to the bad-a pretty sum for a country not one-fifth as rich as the United States. If it were not for that, we could so readjust the whole pack as to shoulder it with a smile.

We will indeed confess this-that many of us quite quietly expect Britain in due time to be greater than ever. Why? Because everything beyond a doubt is forcing us-clean contrary to what Colonel Harvey supposes-into higher and wider home production to compensate for our disadvantage in the matter of foreign tariffs and the foreign debt. Why? Because there is an Empire yet capable of vast development in its tropical dependencies alone—an equivalent for the American South.

There will be yet a United States of Europe to link up equally with the United States of America. All who watch vigilantly, all who have eyes to see what movements are stirring, and thought to know what they mean, are already aware that the slow creative irresistible impulse towards some form of a United States of Europe has already begun. For it is the genius of civilised man to rise from profound troubles to mightier ideas, and to find a new salvation when he must.

Facts Recognized

Harold E. Scarborough in The New York Herald Tribune

LONDON.-No one who has ever known Colonel George Harvey has for a moment doubted his ability to start something. This time, however, a roar has gone up from one end of the nation to the other as a result of Harvey's article, The Plight of England. In his article Britain is cast for the rôle of the corpse, but has grown so indignant that one is forced to conclude that after all the British lion is not dead, but merely dozing.

At any rate, this symbolic beast seems to object as much to the Colonel's pat on the head as it used to object when pressure was applied to the other extremity. As might have been expected, the first reaction to the cabled extracts of Harvey's article could be summed up in the ejaculation, "God preserve us from our friends!".

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Conservative papers, such as The Telegraph and The Morning Post, have not yet replied to Colonel Harvey, probably because they were better able to appreciate his philosophy while he was Ambassador here, and perhaps also because his thesis is not so very different from what they themselves have been preaching. Of course, a serious answer to the question, "Is England Done?" can no more be given in the negative than in the affirmative sense offhand. If one selects to deal in generalities it must be admitted that most of the counts in Harvey's schedule are well founded so far as fact is concerned.

The Prime Minister's Cautious View

From The New York Times

LONDON, Jan. 27.-Premier Baldwin, in his long-awaited speech at Sunderland tonight, held up America as an example for Great Britain to emulate. "I sometimes wonder," said Mr. Baldwin, "if we've gone to sleep, some of us, in these last six or seven years, while others have been particularly wide awake. I believe we should do well to study and emulate the progress that has been made in the United States of America during that time.

"I would urge employers and trade union leaders to make the point of visiting that country quickly and often just at present, to study their methods, which are proving to be of such success in production, and I venture to think that no trade union leader could do better service to the cause he represents than by investigating closely what the methods are that enable American workmen to enjoy a better standard of living than any working people in the world, to produce more and at the same time to have so much higher wages.

"I venture to think there is much more for us to learn from studying conditions in that country than by spending any amount of money studying conditions in Moscow."

The Premier touched cautiously upon a brighter outlook becoming noticeable within the last few weeks which has aroused unmitigated joy in the hearts of British super-optimists.

"I think there are grounds for what I may call a sober confidence for a moderate optimism," he said. "I always like to understate a case and undoubtedly in some industries an improvement has been helped by the coal subsidy and it is impossible to say at this moment whether that help will have more than temporary effect upon those trades.

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"The symptoms are more favorable than they have been since the war. The slow process of the funding of debts and the stabilization of currencies, a better spirit than ever has been engendered, is all helping trade."

Summing up, Premier Baldwin said, "I think you will agree with me that the Government has not been idle, nor are we shirking problems because of their difficulties or their unpopularity."

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